Impressive Survey Data from SAMA-Sponsored “Made in Florida” Tours

FLATE’s
partnership with the Sarasota Manatee Area Manufacturers Association (SAMA) grows
stronger each year. With leadership from Peter Straw, executive director, Jennifer Behrens-Schmidt, president, and SAMA’s
extremely active board members, four “Made
In Florida” tours were held this Spring for 141 students. To analyze the
impact of the industry tours, FLATE surveys all students after the completion
of tours. This ensures tours to the advanced
manufacturing facilities are effectively meeting needs.

Below
are cumulative results for 141 students from Northport and Bayshore high schools
and Woodland Middle School. As evidenced in the results, a tremendous amount of
learning about advanced manufacturing and manufactured products took place. We
ascertain impact by comparing two opinion questions about consideration of a
career in manufacturing (shown in bold in the table below). The 38% positive
change in opinion is above our cumulative norm of 36% for 3,386 students. The
positive promotion of advanced manufacturing in your area through efforts such
as tours is reinforced by both high school academies and college programs at
State College of Florida-Manatee. These partnerships are crucial to building a
pipeline for an educated workforce in Florida. As a student from Bayshore High
School shared regarding the tour: “Our tour guide, Matt was very good. I
learned a lot from him about manufacturing and my now potential future.”

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FLATE
looks forward to a continued partnership with SAMA members.Additionally, FLATE always

seeks to strengthen
our relationships with Regional Manufacturing Associations (RMA) in our state
with the goal of helping Florida’s students become increasingly aware of the
career opportunities that exist in advanced manufacturing industries and the
educational pathways needed to pursue those careers. Organizational leaders can visit http://fl-ate.org/projects/tours.html
to access FLATE’s Best Practice Guide for offering effective industry tours. If
your RMA, or manufacturing company would like to discuss the “Made inFlorida” tours, please contact FLATE’s Outreach Manager, Desh
Bagley, at (813) 253-7838, or outreach@fl-ate.org.

NOCTI Book

If you are new to CTE administration or considering moving into that arena, you might want to check out this new resource published by ACTE and written by NOCTI. There are lots of hot tips, check lists and and case studies / notes from the field including our experiences here at FLATE working with our industry partners through advisory committees or boards. (You can find FLATE on page 56!). You don’t have to re-invent the wheel.

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Disclaimer

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation, under the following grant DUE# 1204751. "Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation."